12:00
by leahalexis
Summary: The Ellimist visits Jake mid-(book #)54.


  
Author's Note: Yeah, I know, another depressing 54 fics. But I wrote this one, like, a month ago, and have just been too busy working (ugh) to post it. And I'm pretty proud of it. But it's the last one, I promise. Anyway, now that we're getting some more variety back, hopefully it'll be better received. (As a side authors-note, Jake was never even my favorite character-- for some reason, he just keeps jumping out at me with stories.)  
  
Disclaimer etc: I don't own Animorphs, they're K.A. Applegate's and Scholastic's; unfortunately, probably not in that order.  
  
  
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*"You were brave, you were strong, you were good, you mattered."*  
  
Jake shot straight up in bed, his shirt sticky from sweat, his hair damp and matted from violently fitful sleep. His heart shuddered against his rib cage. Automatically he filed the dream away, to be dealt with some other time. Then he realized this was that time, the time to deal with all those things he'd put on hold. He didn't have to be sharp and ever-ready anymore. The war was over. His job was over. And yet still he ignored it, still said *later*.  
  
He focused his eyes on his surroundings. The shapes of shadows lurked in the dark, but didn't spook him like they did when he was younger; it was the silence, the emptiness, that did it. Even the night through the window screen was soundless, motionless. The clock blinked 12:00, 12:00, 12:00, boxy and impersonal red.  
  
Almost two years later, and it was all still the same. Still the nightmares, vivid splashes of reality, painful like a deep sharp breath to suffocating lungs, and still the unfocused listlessness around them that passed itself off as days. The same room, the same outdated basketball posters, the same otherwise bare, off-white walls. The hollow void where the weight of responsibility used to live. His brain was still thick, numb. Before, it was busy, sharp, necessarily consumed with deliberating, with balancing, with holding all the factors in place long enough to distinguish the best plan of attack, of retreat. And now there was nothing for it to do. This was supposed to be the time for rest, for healing; but there was nothing left to heal, nothing left it was possible to fix. The time for rest had long since passed, the window in which rest would have restored some fraction of normality had closed. His body had shaken off the shock, but his mind. . . It had been stretched too far, and now, unable to retract, it sagged, used, worn-out, left thick and bloated in his head.  
  
Sometimes it was better, sometimes *he* was better. He'd almost let Marco talk him into buying a place a few houses down from his. He joked with his parents, went a day without thinking about Rachel, or Tom, and didn't feel too bad for it. But it always came back to this, always returned to this place, this room, this feeling.  
  
Jake stared at his hands, older, broader. He fisted them, flexed them out again. Grown-up hands. He turned them over, looking for the scars, the evidence of battle. Not the blood, like he used to. Just the proof. The wear. So unreal, the way they were clean and smooth. So deceptive. Grown up and capable, but untested. When he'd already failed.  
  
He should have been the one to die, not Rachel. He should have been the one saved this empty agony, this ghost of existence. And Rachel should have been the one left there to muddle through this mess. Because she could have done it. However she'd have grieved, however she'd have coped, it would have been aggressive and efficient. And in the end, it would have become simple. The need for survival. For finding enjoyment in that survival. But he couldn't see his way through. He didn't want to.  
  
Purposefully, he let the dream come back to him. He stood, wide-stanced and steady, on the bridge of the pool ship. Rachel, he said. Go. The screen lit up with dracon beam fire, with half-formed bodies, morphing, in and out of recognizable forms, and Rachel, standing, roaring, in the center, bleeding, blinded, dying, dead. Familiar images. He watched it dispassionately, each moment replaying as if rehearsed, a ruthlessly neutral march of images, the facts. This was every nightmare, every day and most of every night. But tonight, it had been different. And that's what had woken him: fresh emotion, fresh pain.  
  
Quietly, still looking into the distance, Jake asked, "Why are you here?"  
  
The Ellimist spread his hands, a gesture of careful simplicity. "I felt bad."  
  
"Why now? What's left?" Jake's eyes shifted, focused.  
  
"You are."  
  
He stood, old man, unstooped but small, at the foot of Jake's bed, the haunt in his eyes some queer mockery of Jake's own. Absently tired, as if grief had become an involuntary function.  
  
Jake looked him in those eyes, and nodded tightly. "So are you."  
  
The Ellimist broke his gaze first, looked away. The sky reflected stars on the film of his eyes, whole galaxies cupped between his cheek and forehead.  
  
"Do you want me to say it's all right?" Jake asked finally. Not angry. Just weary. "To tell you I get it? That I understand what you had to do? I do. I get it."  
  
"But?"  
  
"But it's not all right."  
  
"No. It's not."  
  
After a while, the Ellimist went on, face blank. "I spoke to Rachel just before she died."  
  
Jake's hands tightened on the comforter, but his face remained neutral.  
  
"To show her what I am. Who I am. The reasons why. She deserved to know."  
  
He could have asked why he didn't deserve those reasons. If that was why he was here now. "Did she give you your absolution?"  
  
"She had given you yours. Did it change anything?"  
  
Jake didn't answer.  
  
The Ellimist was waiting. Like he had nothing else in the world to do. Neither did Jake.  
  
After a while he asked, "So what's the problem?"  
  
"When she heard it all, she said I was just a kid, one who had gotten trapped. A kid like her."  
  
A slow pulse started behind Jake's left eye. "Are you?"  
  
The edges of the Ellimist's mouth turned up slightly, grimly. "Either I play Crayak's game and take the chance of losing, or I refuse to play and lose by default. He will destroy anyway. He plays because it is a challenge. A reason to go on existing. He plays by rules because it is the only way I will play, now. But even if the rules are mine, the advantage remains his. It is easier to interfere than to prevent interference, to destroy than to save. It is one move versus the anticipation of a hundred thousand possibilities."  
  
"You have no choice. Like I had no choice. Is that what you're trying to say?"  
  
"In a manner of speaking."  
  
"But I told you, Ellimist, I get that."  
  
"You understand it, but that is not enough. You must accept it. What was done. Why."  
  
"I can't." Jake looked down at his hands again. "I won't." For the first time, he looked angry. "You could have done something."  
  
"Jake, there are rules."  
  
"So?" He was furious, his skin felt too tight, his head pounded. The anger was bright and hot in his brain. "Rules are more important than life? Break them!"  
  
"The rules are what make life possible. The same rules that constrain me constrain Crayak as well. They make it possible to play. Which makes it possible to win. It is not possible to trust Crayak outside of them."  
  
"It's not possible to trust Crayak period."  
  
"He is. . . a fair opponent."  
  
"Until when?" Jake snapped. "Until he gets bored with playing your game?"  
  
"Perhaps. But until then. . . " The Ellimist shrugged. "I won't fight him, Jake. Not like that, not even if I could. You think this is bad? Crayak having free reign would be immeasurably worse. I'm not willing to make that sacrifice."  
  
"Not for me."  
  
The Ellimist's mouth tightened. "No."  
  
"And not for Rachel."  
  
The pain was visible on the Ellimist's face. "No, not for Rachel. And neither are you."  
  
The knowledge, the shame, flashed visibly through the blankness of Jake's eyes. His body bowed in on itself, shuddering, his hands tight around his ankles. The pain was sharp in his chest, his lungs, he couldn't get a breath. He wasn't. Wasn't willing to make that sacrifice. He wasn't then, he wasn't now. And God, God, he hated himself for it. For being able to do it. For not looking for another way, for not being able to think of another way, even now. For not being *willing* to think of one. For wanting to stop hurting because he just did the best he could, for wanting to stop making himself suffer.  
  
For a moment he simply sat, trembling, forehead rested on his bent knees. Defeated, miserable, he looked up, whispered, "I just want my life back."  
  
"This is your life, Jake," the Ellimist said quietly. "Would you rather not know it? I can erase the memories for you. But I can't bring Rachel back."  
  
"I know." The words sounded far away as Jake spoke them. "Thank you."  
  
The Ellimist nodded. And he was gone.  
  
Slowly, awareness came back to him. Jake found his hands first, then his feet. Feeling rushed back, limb by limb. Then he cried. And afterwards, he felt better. He turned on the light, took slow steps to the bathroom, rinsed his face. Studied his eyes in the mirror. Was there hope there now? It was probably just the light. But they looked less tired, less heavy. Very young.  
  
He went back into his bedroom, picked up the phone. Dialed. "Hey, Marco?"  
  
A muffled curse. Then, "It's 4 fucking 45 in the morning, man!" Marco's voice was gritty.  
  
Jake looked at the clock. "I didn't know."  
  
It still flashed 12:00. He reached out, advanced it a minute. It glowed steady.  
  
"At least you called," Marco muttered.  
  
"It was about that house. I'll call you back tomorrow," Jake told him, and smiled.  
  
"Sure you will."  
  
"Really."  
  
"We'll see, buddy."  
  
"Night Marco."  
  
"Yeah okay Jake."  
  
He hung up the phone, laid back, staring at the ceiling. His life. Such as it was. 


End file.
